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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/06/2023 at 4:01pm
Originally posted by longrange longrange wrote:

Originally posted by ghostzen ghostzen wrote:

I agree as well .. the hole created even for the top elite players is troublesome let alone mortals. Moving the right foot that far from ready position at such as angle and also the tell.... the recovery triangle is massive and I can't see it viable unless an outright winner or shot to nothing almost. My question would always be how to get to the wide angle or down the line stroke with any quality after such a stroke with consistency. 

It will interesting if the tactic is used in the higher level and then filter down to us mortals. 
Yes, it's all or nothing. But if I step in for a chiquita from forehand corner it's not much better: block along the diagonal and I'm toasted. Happens, but on my level this risk is totally worth it.

Imo the chiquita from FH corner is way harder than this because the steps are a lot bigger and there are more steps to take (3 in total) unless your right foot is already in the middle line and closer to the table during the receive... 
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BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/06/2023 at 4:55pm
Originally posted by ghostzen ghostzen wrote:

Originally posted by longrange longrange wrote:

Here's Wang Chuqin stepping in with the forehand foot to banana:
Very powerful indeed, but he gets punished, since the opponent is certainly waiting. At 8:4 WCQ does more of a side step and wins the point. I didn't analyze the game but these two I noticed yesterday.
Now if I was playing against this serve, I'd go forehand foot, that's seems to be a good idea on my level.

I agree as well .. the hole created even for the top elite players is troublesome let alone mortals. Moving the right foot that far from ready position at such as angle and also the tell.... the recovery triangle is massive and I can't see it viable unless an outright winner or shot to nothing almost. My question would always be how to get to the wide angle or down the line stroke with any quality after such a stroke with consistency. 

It will interesting if the tactic is used in the higher level and then filter down to us mortals. 

Such things are always relative to the level of your opponent IMHO, I think there is no universal answer to footwork that doesn't depend rely on the balance between ability to recover (for the next shot) on one hand and shot quality (which might make the ball hard to return properly) on the other.  Balance is almost always lost at maximum power and power is almost always lost when you maintain balance.  It's why clean technique rarely ever shows up in matches where you make compromises to get the best shot you need to win points against the opposition while being able to defend against returned balls.  If someone is serving you wide, you have the the choice between putting the ball back safely or going for high risk shots that put you out of position.  
I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/07/2023 at 11:32pm
I did a lot of training with the right foot forward method to chiquita wide BH balls - I tried it a bit with my old way (left foot forward) and I now think both have their advantages and disadvantages. 

Right foot forward advantage is that it is really easy to apply a lot of power on the chiquita, also you can go down the line much easier than the left foot forward method, even for pushes I think it has much more control as you can use your body rotation. Also, you can cut off wide balls much easier (the reach is more than the left foot method) and you can take the ball earlier because it's 1 step less. I found it much easier to recover fast using this method - it was no sweat to even reach any wide FH balls after the chiquita. 

The real disadvantage of right foot forward is that if the wide serve is long and with pace and your right foot is already forward, your only option is a very awkward weak spinny loop, there's no opportunity to apply power - you really need to be on point with reading the length of the serve.Whereas with the left foot forward it's less of a drastic adjustment to loop the serve if it turns out long and with pace. 

Basically, for max receive quality it's left foot for long fast wide serves and right foot for short slower wide serves. 

Tldr: right foot forward has much better receive quality and also faster recovery but more vulnerable to serve length/pace variations, left foot forward has weaker receive quality and slower recovery but more resilient to serve length/pace variations




Edited by blahness - 01/07/2023 at 11:33pm
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Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/08/2023 at 12:17am
Update on other aspects:

Continued training the FH pivot, and I was really trying hard to reach the fast block to the wide FH after the FH pivot, and after many tries, for the first time I managed to do it! It is so exhilarating haha to finally do it. And after that I managed to do a few more, but this really gassed me out - was really out of air by that time (the hot conditions didn't help). The immediate spring-like push back after the pivot is crucial to be able to reach that wide FH, otherwise at this speed there's no chance at all. 

I'm gonna see if I can one day reach the wide FH after the pivot and still come back to FH loop the block on the BH haha. 

Played a match against a teenage girl who seemed very well trained and was quite fast to boot. Still beat her 3:0 this time which was a bit surprising, but I think I won due to more advanced techniques she probably hasn't seen before - very deceptive hook/pendulum serves, the chiquita, strawberry receive, BH loop/counter down the line and my very spinny FH opening loop which gave her way too much trouble. I missed a few of her no spin serves - she disguised them very well - it looked almost like heavy underspin (including the trajectory yikes)

I saw a very interesting video by Yin Hang saying that the fade movement is probably the best way to FH loop fast long FH pendulum serves to the FH and also to BH loop fast long BH pendulum serves to the BH - I'm going to try that but it all makes sense - usually with these serves it's a bit awkward to add spin/quality confidently to the loop at the moment because of the way the sidespin curves the ball. So for e.g. the fast long FH pendulum serve curves to the left as it moves - hence it would be easier to "catch" the ball if the blade face was also moving to the left like in a FH fade movement. Vice versa for the BH pendulum serve. 
Edit: Did some practice and found out this is not exactly necessary - the loop can be the usual loop, just that i should be pulling the blade face to the left when approaching the ball against FH sidespin pendulum - and blade face moving to the right when approaching the ball against BH sidespin pendulum - makes it a lot more consistent. 

Training recovery footwork for more footwork patterns. 
1) after serve
2) after stepping in to receive a short serve
3) after the FH loop - including after the pivot, and after the crossover step



Edited by blahness - 01/12/2023 at 6:56am
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/18/2023 at 6:37pm
Short tip on BH body usage on rotation. 

The most modern way is to rotate your right shoulder anticlockwise without the left shoulder rotating much at all during the backswing to store energy. This method can produce a lot of energy to power the rotation and is a very explosive power source. 

It's also much faster compared to the method where the left shoulder rotates in sync with the right shoulder (full body turn). 
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/19/2023 at 5:15pm
Played matches against 2 coaches today, one is a penholder and the other is a combination LP/inverted attacker. Got to deuce many times but still only won a few games lol - they are just too crafty. The new method to BH loop receive against fast BH sidetopspin/sideunderspin serves was really good (by moving the blade face to the right during the loop), it feels a lot more secure, I managed to get a lot back and got myself into a rally where I think I'm favoured against them due to my power. Still fell victim to the numerous tricks they had, and just way too many unforced errors on my FH loop.

One pattern that was incredibly hard to decipher is the fast spinny serve to the BH/wide BH followed by the fast counter/smash to the deep FH. My conclusion of the matter is that I needed to loop these down the line or the elbow area, otherwise I'll just suffer. Well actually I did reach quite a few of them but my legs were just too out from gym training to do it over and over again. 


Edited by blahness - 01/19/2023 at 5:16pm
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/27/2023 at 7:50pm
Few tips on weight transfer and BH:

1) when collecting power from the ground, make sure to put the weight on the front foot and not the rear foot, with the chest facing downwards too. This will prevent the body from "falling backwards"

2) For BH, make sure that the wrist never goes from flexion to extension, but rather stays in flexion. This prevents wrist injuries and makes the supination mechanism stronger. Also increases spin.

3) The method to remove pace from incoming ball can be achieved by a sideways movement (still contacting the back of the ball), especially useful against heavy topspin. 


Edited by blahness - 01/28/2023 at 11:51pm
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/04/2023 at 10:43pm
Discovered a new product that may lengthen the shelf life of rubbers. 

So basically instead of vacuum sealing, I'm simply sealing it in a food storage bag, and then throwing in oxygen absorbers and silica gel (absorb water). Hopefully these will be able to prevent oxidation hardening of the rubbers...
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BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/04/2023 at 11:29pm
Did a shit ton of FH loop training today to try to extract more spin quality and to train up footwork. Focused a lot on the legwork in general. This worked quite well but I'm not sure how much of these training will translate into better match results lol... 

Also did a lot of high quality BH topspin rallying to develop better rallying abilities. The left to right pulling of the blade face is a very interesting technique. It appears that you can kill a lot of incoming topspin with this technique and sort of absorb the ball, then you have a lot of options after that (normal BH topspin, fade topspin, fade block or reduced energy block). Weirdly, the pull to the left for the FH doesn't work at all, might as well just counterloop normally.




Edited by blahness - 02/04/2023 at 11:44pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/05/2023 at 3:13am
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Few tips on weight transfer and BH:

1) when collecting power from the ground, make sure to put the weight on the front foot and not the rear foot, with the chest facing downwards too. This will prevent the body from "falling backwards"

2) For BH, make sure that the wrist never goes from flexion to extension, but rather stays in flexion. This prevents wrist injuries and makes the supination mechanism stronger. Also increases spin.

3) The method to remove pace from incoming ball can be achieved by a sideways movement (still contacting the back of the ball), especially useful against heavy topspin. 

On #2 I learned the hard way. I started training my BH and wasn't using enough of elbow rotation, kept my elbow too close to my body, and tried to compensate by swinging my wrist excessively, finishing each shot with a very extended and radially deviated wrist. I developed a very painful extensor carpi ulnaris tendinitis. 

I was dismayed by the injury, thinking it would hamper my BH development, but it turned out to be a boon. You see, I could still do BH shots without pain so long as I didn't extend my wrist too much. I naturally compensates by using my shoulder (rotating elbow) and biceps (supination), and body more. My BH quality and consistency have improved dramatically as a consequence, and whenever I fall back to my old habits I get a very painful reminder.

My tendinitis is getting a lot better, a little too fast for my liking actually LOL Thankfully it should take 4-6 weeks to completely heal, and I'm trying to focus on BH training so the new motion becomes cemented in my muscle memory. 
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
FH: D09C max
BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/05/2023 at 4:57am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Few tips on weight transfer and BH:

1) when collecting power from the ground, make sure to put the weight on the front foot and not the rear foot, with the chest facing downwards too. This will prevent the body from "falling backwards"

2) For BH, make sure that the wrist never goes from flexion to extension, but rather stays in flexion. This prevents wrist injuries and makes the supination mechanism stronger. Also increases spin.

3) The method to remove pace from incoming ball can be achieved by a sideways movement (still contacting the back of the ball), especially useful against heavy topspin. 

On #2 I learned the hard way. I started training my BH and wasn't using enough of elbow rotation, kept my elbow too close to my body, and tried to compensate by swinging my wrist excessively, finishing each shot with a very extended and radially deviated wrist. I developed a very painful extensor carpi ulnaris tendinitis. 

I was dismayed by the injury, thinking it would hamper my BH development, but it turned out to be a boon. You see, I could still do BH shots without pain so long as I didn't extend my wrist too much. I naturally compensates by using my shoulder (rotating elbow) and biceps (supination), and body more. My BH quality and consistency have improved dramatically as a consequence, and whenever I fall back to my old habits I get a very painful reminder.

My tendinitis is getting a lot better, a little too fast for my liking actually LOL Thankfully it should take 4-6 weeks to completely heal, and I'm trying to focus on BH training so the new motion becomes cemented in my muscle memory. 

If you're interested you should check out Sun Hao Hong's tutorials on Douyin, imo they are even better than Fang Bo's in certain aspects... He insists on the racket always pointing to the left of the hand (thus no wrist extension). He's one of Lin Yun Ju's coaches btw 


Edited by blahness - 02/05/2023 at 5:25am
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/05/2023 at 6:29pm
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:


On #2 I learned the hard way. I started training my BH and wasn't using enough of elbow rotation, kept my elbow too close to my body, and tried to compensate by swinging my wrist excessively, finishing each shot with a very extended and radially deviated wrist. I developed a very painful extensor carpi ulnaris tendinitis. 

I was dismayed by the injury, thinking it would hamper my BH development, but it turned out to be a boon. You see, I could still do BH shots without pain so long as I didn't extend my wrist too much. I naturally compensates by using my shoulder (rotating elbow) and biceps (supination), and body more. My BH quality and consistency have improved dramatically as a consequence, and whenever I fall back to my old habits I get a very painful reminder.

My tendinitis is getting a lot better, a little too fast for my liking actually LOL Thankfully it should take 4-6 weeks to completely heal, and I'm trying to focus on BH training so the new motion becomes cemented in my muscle memory. 

Just thought of adding, using the shoulder by rotating the elbow could also lead to impingement issues (I have friends who have that issue in the shoulder). The better way is to use the lats (upper back muscles) to pull the elbow to the right and even downwards in a clockwise manner. Even better is to use both sets of lats (kinda like ripping apart a piece of paper - which is why it's called 撕 in Chinese, or like a pull-up).  The upper back is usually way stronger than the shoulder and is a more stable mechanism imo. 


Edited by blahness - 02/05/2023 at 6:32pm
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/05/2023 at 9:46pm
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:


On #2 I learned the hard way. I started training my BH and wasn't using enough of elbow rotation, kept my elbow too close to my body, and tried to compensate by swinging my wrist excessively, finishing each shot with a very extended and radially deviated wrist. I developed a very painful extensor carpi ulnaris tendinitis. 

I was dismayed by the injury, thinking it would hamper my BH development, but it turned out to be a boon. You see, I could still do BH shots without pain so long as I didn't extend my wrist too much. I naturally compensates by using my shoulder (rotating elbow) and biceps (supination), and body more. My BH quality and consistency have improved dramatically as a consequence, and whenever I fall back to my old habits I get a very painful reminder.

My tendinitis is getting a lot better, a little too fast for my liking actually LOL Thankfully it should take 4-6 weeks to completely heal, and I'm trying to focus on BH training so the new motion becomes cemented in my muscle memory. 

Just thought of adding, using the shoulder by rotating the elbow could also lead to impingement issues (I have friends who have that issue in the shoulder). The better way is to use the lats (upper back muscles) to pull the elbow to the right and even downwards in a clockwise manner. Even better is to use both sets of lats (kinda like ripping apart a piece of paper - which is why it's called 撕 in Chinese, or like a pull-up).  The upper back is usually way stronger than the shoulder and is a more stable mechanism imo. 

Yeah I use my upper back muscle quite a bit too.  I'm not sure if I use my lats, I use them a lot for FH loops so I don't really feel it with my BH loop.  It does tighten up a good bit during my stroke, but it doesn't get strained nearly enough as when I FH loop so I don't really feel it.  My upper back though was actually sore for the first time from playing TT.  That never happened before my wrist injury.
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
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BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/05/2023 at 10:08pm
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:


On #2 I learned the hard way. I started training my BH and wasn't using enough of elbow rotation, kept my elbow too close to my body, and tried to compensate by swinging my wrist excessively, finishing each shot with a very extended and radially deviated wrist. I developed a very painful extensor carpi ulnaris tendinitis. 

I was dismayed by the injury, thinking it would hamper my BH development, but it turned out to be a boon. You see, I could still do BH shots without pain so long as I didn't extend my wrist too much. I naturally compensates by using my shoulder (rotating elbow) and biceps (supination), and body more. My BH quality and consistency have improved dramatically as a consequence, and whenever I fall back to my old habits I get a very painful reminder.

My tendinitis is getting a lot better, a little too fast for my liking actually LOL Thankfully it should take 4-6 weeks to completely heal, and I'm trying to focus on BH training so the new motion becomes cemented in my muscle memory. 

Just thought of adding, using the shoulder by rotating the elbow could also lead to impingement issues (I have friends who have that issue in the shoulder). The better way is to use the lats (upper back muscles) to pull the elbow to the right and even downwards in a clockwise manner. Even better is to use both sets of lats (kinda like ripping apart a piece of paper - which is why it's called 撕 in Chinese, or like a pull-up).  The upper back is usually way stronger than the shoulder and is a more stable mechanism imo. 

Yeah I use my upper back muscle quite a bit too.  I'm not sure if I use my lats, I use them a lot for FH loops so I don't really feel it with my BH loop.  It does tighten up a good bit during my stroke, but it doesn't get strained nearly enough as when I FH loop so I don't really feel it.  My upper back though was actually sore for the first time from playing TT.  That never happened before my wrist injury.
Hmm that's strange to hear it being used on the FH, for me the FH arm movement is like doing a chest fly (arms from outward to inward) which uses quite a bit of the chest muscles (a bit like a hugging movement or clapping hands), BH arm movement is the opposite (arms from inward to outward). 

But sometimes it's the opposite part of the movement which is the most sore - for e.g. my left leg was the most sore after training a lot of FH pivoting (not the right) - i think it's because the left leg is responsible for stopping the full body momentum after the FH pivot and even rebounding with the momentum to allow the right leg to reach a better position to continue FH looping.


Edited by blahness - 02/05/2023 at 10:48pm
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/10/2023 at 6:42am
Continued training this new left to right dragging of the blade face BH concept, it's actually really strong because the fade topspin variant is almost perfectly disguised. So you can be very strong on the BH-BH diagonal and it's quite simple to just change it last second to a fade topspin down the line killer. Also it increases the dwell time of the BH loop stroke which is excellent for control/stability. 

Changed my FH rubber to 38 deg Hurricane 8-80, and it was not as great as I thought, the extreme tackiness made it quite unpleasant to play with, because sometimes it will drag the ball for way too long and the ball will just be pulled out of the table. My FH loops kept on missing the end of the table which was quite frustrating. Maybe I still need to adjust to it properly by a lot of driving practice.

I'm now trying out the right to left dragging method for the FH too, maybe that will make FH topspin rallying and counterlooping more stable....


Edited by blahness - 02/10/2023 at 10:56pm
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/11/2023 at 11:41pm
I tried the good old hit extremely hard to get rid of extreme tackiness for the Hurricane 8-80 and it's starting to behave itself a bit. DHS QC is really weird, coz the last black sheet I got wasn't that tacky, this red sheet is crazy tacky lol... it could definitely lift balls off tables. 

I tried out the right to left dragging method for the FH for topspin rallies, it works quite well too especially from mid distance! I was able to stand my ground and reliably do topspins from mid-far distance from the table with decent speed and spin with this method with both BH and FH. Similar to how it works for the BH it pretty much kills a lot of the incoming topspin so that you can then add your own spin more reliably. It is quite useful to increase counterloop percentages. 

The problem is that it doesn't quite work against balls without topspin on them. So I still need to use my normal FH loop against block or for opening loops. 
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/15/2023 at 5:38pm
Played against the rally player and destroyed him pretty much this time lol, mostly due to my new BH rallying abilities. It's quite important to actually rally patiently and not attack blindly against him because his defence is amazing - blind attacks will only get blocked to some crazy placement. I focused more on playing safe, high percentage with all my shots even when attacking, focusing a lot more on placement and spin. The other thing I did was committing to punishing any floaty balls to the FH, that helped to keep the line of play in my BH corner.

With the serve, I realised it's way easier to control the ball if the elbow is close to the body, and starting/ending with a bent arm, relying a lot more on the weight transfer for power. The reduced movement allows a lot more precise control over the placement and spin, and the recovery time after serve is way faster. I'm going to transition most of my serves to this kind of movement now.
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/18/2023 at 12:00am
Decided to do some kind of medicine ball training for the FH stroke as advised by a few ppl. If you haven't tried it you have to, it definitely works a lot of magic! Basically you do the FH stroke with both hands holding the ball rather than holding the racket with one hand. So what this promotes is an awareness of using weight transfer and the legs/core to really power the stroke, and more importantly for me personally, the real use of the free arm to power the FH loop. It was just a concept previously but now I really get it - the left arm should be rotating almost in unison with the right when doing the FH loop, the feeling is like catching the ball with both hands and then releasing it - rather than the racket acting as a spring, the whole body is acting like a spring! After I went to the table to test this stroke - I realised that my FH control of the ball and consistency has improved very significantly after some medicine ball training. I even practised against a really fast rallying guy who gives all sorts of weird spin during practice and managed to get almost all his balls back on the FH, and when I actually wanted to powerloop, the resulting loop was significantly heavier and more stable than what I used to do. The feeling is like doing a two handed BH in tennis vs 1 handed - the 2 handed stroke is just significantly more stable.

Edited by blahness - 02/18/2023 at 12:02am
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Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/18/2023 at 10:18am
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Decided to do some kind of medicine ball training for the FH stroke as advised by a few ppl. If you haven't tried it you have to, it definitely works a lot of magic! Basically you do the FH stroke with both hands holding the ball rather than holding the racket with one hand. So what this promotes is an awareness of using weight transfer and the legs/core to really power the stroke, and more importantly for me personally, the real use of the free arm to power the FH loop. It was just a concept previously but now I really get it - the left arm should be rotating almost in unison with the right when doing the FH loop, the feeling is like catching the ball with both hands and then releasing it - rather than the racket acting as a spring, the whole body is acting like a spring! After I went to the table to test this stroke - I realised that my FH control of the ball and consistency has improved very significantly after some medicine ball training. I even practised against a really fast rallying guy who gives all sorts of weird spin during practice and managed to get almost all his balls back on the FH, and when I actually wanted to powerloop, the resulting loop was significantly heavier and more stable than what I used to do. The feeling is like doing a two handed BH in tennis vs 1 handed - the 2 handed stroke is just significantly more stable.

That sounds interesting, I wonder if say a dumbbell would work similarly since I don't have a medicine ball.  I've been working on my BH a lot recently but will start working on my FH soon, so I might give this a try.  How heavy is your medicine ball?
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
FH: D09C max
BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/18/2023 at 5:53pm
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Decided to do some kind of medicine ball training for the FH stroke as advised by a few ppl. If you haven't tried it you have to, it definitely works a lot of magic! Basically you do the FH stroke with both hands holding the ball rather than holding the racket with one hand. So what this promotes is an awareness of using weight transfer and the legs/core to really power the stroke, and more importantly for me personally, the real use of the free arm to power the FH loop. It was just a concept previously but now I really get it - the left arm should be rotating almost in unison with the right when doing the FH loop, the feeling is like catching the ball with both hands and then releasing it - rather than the racket acting as a spring, the whole body is acting like a spring! After I went to the table to test this stroke - I realised that my FH control of the ball and consistency has improved very significantly after some medicine ball training. I even practised against a really fast rallying guy who gives all sorts of weird spin during practice and managed to get almost all his balls back on the FH, and when I actually wanted to powerloop, the resulting loop was significantly heavier and more stable than what I used to do. The feeling is like doing a two handed BH in tennis vs 1 handed - the 2 handed stroke is just significantly more stable.

That sounds interesting, I wonder if say a dumbbell would work similarly since I don't have a medicine ball.  I've been working on my BH a lot recently but will start working on my FH soon, so I might give this a try.  How heavy is your medicine ball?

5kg but you can really replace it with any reasonably bulky object... The idea is to minimise arm movement, feel the use of the legs/core more, and to make it more like a 2 handed stroke instead of 1.
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Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/18/2023 at 6:09pm
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Decided to do some kind of medicine ball training for the FH stroke as advised by a few ppl. If you haven't tried it you have to, it definitely works a lot of magic! Basically you do the FH stroke with both hands holding the ball rather than holding the racket with one hand. So what this promotes is an awareness of using weight transfer and the legs/core to really power the stroke, and more importantly for me personally, the real use of the free arm to power the FH loop. It was just a concept previously but now I really get it - the left arm should be rotating almost in unison with the right when doing the FH loop, the feeling is like catching the ball with both hands and then releasing it - rather than the racket acting as a spring, the whole body is acting like a spring! After I went to the table to test this stroke - I realised that my FH control of the ball and consistency has improved very significantly after some medicine ball training. I even practised against a really fast rallying guy who gives all sorts of weird spin during practice and managed to get almost all his balls back on the FH, and when I actually wanted to powerloop, the resulting loop was significantly heavier and more stable than what I used to do. The feeling is like doing a two handed BH in tennis vs 1 handed - the 2 handed stroke is just significantly more stable.

That sounds interesting, I wonder if say a dumbbell would work similarly since I don't have a medicine ball.  I've been working on my BH a lot recently but will start working on my FH soon, so I might give this a try.  How heavy is your medicine ball?

5kg but you can really replace it with any reasonably bulky object... The idea is to minimise arm movement, feel the use of the legs/core more, and to make it more like a 2 handed stroke instead of 1.

Ah, I see, I think my 5kg barbell should work then. Holding it in both hands wouldn't allow me to move my arms much. Maybe add 2.5-5lbs of weight to make it as difficult to swing around as a medicine ball. 
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
FH: D09C max
BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/19/2023 at 8:49am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Decided to do some kind of medicine ball training for the FH stroke as advised by a few ppl. If you haven't tried it you have to, it definitely works a lot of magic! Basically you do the FH stroke with both hands holding the ball rather than holding the racket with one hand. So what this promotes is an awareness of using weight transfer and the legs/core to really power the stroke, and more importantly for me personally, the real use of the free arm to power the FH loop. It was just a concept previously but now I really get it - the left arm should be rotating almost in unison with the right when doing the FH loop, the feeling is like catching the ball with both hands and then releasing it - rather than the racket acting as a spring, the whole body is acting like a spring! After I went to the table to test this stroke - I realised that my FH control of the ball and consistency has improved very significantly after some medicine ball training. I even practised against a really fast rallying guy who gives all sorts of weird spin during practice and managed to get almost all his balls back on the FH, and when I actually wanted to powerloop, the resulting loop was significantly heavier and more stable than what I used to do. The feeling is like doing a two handed BH in tennis vs 1 handed - the 2 handed stroke is just significantly more stable.

That sounds interesting, I wonder if say a dumbbell would work similarly since I don't have a medicine ball.  I've been working on my BH a lot recently but will start working on my FH soon, so I might give this a try.  How heavy is your medicine ball?

5kg but you can really replace it with any reasonably bulky object... The idea is to minimise arm movement, feel the use of the legs/core more, and to make it more like a 2 handed stroke instead of 1.

Ah, I see, I think my 5kg barbell should work then. Holding it in both hands wouldn't allow me to move my arms much. Maybe add 2.5-5lbs of weight to make it as difficult to swing around as a medicine ball. 

Yep any reasonably bulky/heavy object would do. It's actually magical how well it works haha. 
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/20/2023 at 8:03am
Played some matches at the crappy arena with the grippy tables this time. Surprisingly now that I've changed my strokes to a lot more 2 handed and body/core controlled with minimal arm swing, I was able to adjust pretty fast (previously it was like hell playing in this arena). The weird thing is that against my old training partner sometimes the bad habits (esp lifting elbow on the BH stroke instead of pulling the elbow clockwise and downwards) crop up in weird moments... Must be some residual muscle memory. But I'm happy with where my game is heading. Smile
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/22/2023 at 7:42am
Practiced a lot of BH counterlooping (new stroke), and focused a lot on pulling the elbow clockwise such that it points down at the end of the stroke to produce max topspin. Works pretty well but is a little inconsistent still. Will need to train this a lot more. I think it's gonna solve some of my old BH bad habits. 

I discovered a way to easily rally and overwhelm long pips pushblockers. Basically you will almost always get to loop first, which they will happily chopblock, resulting in a really heavy backspin ball which often lands short! Now instead of attempting to loop this crazy backspin ball, you can use this to your advantage. A lot of ppl slow push this backspin ball which allows the long pips player to attack your push which results in a really terrible situation. The trick is lunge towards the backspin ball and give them their own medicine, a really fast deep push taken very early - place them to the corners and to their pocket as you choose - view this push as an aggressive stroke, not just putting it back on the table.

Long pips pushblockers usually stay close to the table and it is very hard for them to attack this deep fast push, so usually they just kinda bump it back - this ball will then be weak topspin which is the easiest ball to powerloop heavy. This also saves your legs because you don't need to continuously loop heavy af backspin (requires a lot of leg work)

So the idea is loop - aggressive fast push - aggressive loop and then rinse and repeat. Basically improving on the 1 loop 1 push idea by really improving the quality of the push. Because your shots are always faster than the long pips player, you are always in the aggressive position and should gain an advantage once you enter this sort of situation.

I tried this against a pretty good pushblocker, and I was able to win like 70% of the rallies simply using this pattern. 


Edited by blahness - 02/22/2023 at 7:47am
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/24/2023 at 7:28am
Did a lot of serve training after neglecting it a lot. I finally managed to find a way to get my standard FH pendulum serve as spinny as my hook serve which has been my bread and butter for a while. The key is actually to delay the serve action for as long as possible, and then explosively do the action as fast as possible - this makes the serve much more sudden and also increases the spin significantly. But the problem with increasing the spin on the serve is that I can no longer loop the received ball especially the side under version - if they push that serve back to me it is just ridiculously spinny, it's as if the ball weighed like a truck ugh. I guess I'll probably serve sidetopspin for the most part and serve side under only occasionally lol.
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/25/2023 at 10:43pm
Practiced a lot with a focus on spinning the ball really heavily on both BH and FH, also includes a lot of mid distance counterlooping. Discovered a secret detail to increase the amount of topspin produced in the BH (as I've been doing a lot of fast countering rather than actual looping, but tbh I need a really spinny BH to increase my percentages when opening up against various weird receives, otherwise my new spinny serves wouldn't do me much good at all.
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FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/26/2023 at 12:19am
I've been doing the weight training with an 11lb barbell with 2.5lb weight on one end. It's working super well!

One nice thing about this is that 1) you can't move your arms at all when holding the weights, and 2) you can really only move it quickly with your body. This forces me to use the body entirely for both the backswing and the forward swing, which made me realize that my body's motion was actually always disconnected from my racket's motion.

It's really an unbelievable boon for my form. I've been trying to improve my FH form for the past few months, and to that end I've made many recordings of my form from many angles and compared them to Ma Long's form in slow motion and no matter what it didn't look right. With this training the right form came so naturally! 

Now, my body moves in unison with my arm, so that even if I don't move my arm an inch I'd be able to loop. When I do move my arm, it becomes both an amplifier of my body's power and a correction mechanism to a misjudged ball, rather than a large component in determining the power and accuracy of my shot.

I'm just starting the FH training phase of my practices (I've been working on the BH mostly) and just one practice in I was shocked by how much a week of this weight training has helped. I'm adding a BH variation to this now too, where I'd have the weight to the left and my right hand/arm holding the bar close to the weight and pressing it against my body, then do the BH motion. Body usage is not quite as important for the BH side, but it's still a great workout and keeps my muscles balanced. 
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
FH: D09C max
BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/26/2023 at 1:20am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

I've been doing the weight training with an 11lb barbell with 2.5lb weight on one end. It's working super well!

One nice thing about this is that 1) you can't move your arms at all when holding the weights, and 2) you can really only move it quickly with your body. This forces me to use the body entirely for both the backswing and the forward swing, which made me realize that my body's motion was actually always disconnected from my racket's motion.

It's really an unbelievable boon for my form. I've been trying to improve my FH form for the past few months, and to that end I've made many recordings of my form from many angles and compared them to Ma Long's form in slow motion and no matter what it didn't look right. With this training the right form came so naturally! 

Now, my body moves in unison with my arm, so that even if I don't move my arm an inch I'd be able to loop. When I do move my arm, it becomes both an amplifier of my body's power and a correction mechanism to a misjudged ball, rather than a large component in determining the power and accuracy of my shot.

I'm just starting the FH training phase of my practices (I've been working on the BH mostly) and just one practice in I was shocked by how much a week of this weight training has helped. I'm adding a BH variation to this now too, where I'd have the weight to the left and my right hand/arm holding the bar close to the weight and pressing it against my body, then do the BH motion. Body usage is not quite as important for the BH side, but it's still a great workout and keeps my muscles balanced. 

Glad i was able to help! Yes - this is an unbelievable exercise to "disable" the arm and to force yourself to use the body as the primary mover. Most amateurs move their arm way too much because they see these big af strokes by the pros and then try to replicate them with the arm including myself earlier. 

To level up in stroke quality, you need to minimise arm movement as much as possible in all strokes. This includes serve, serve receive (pushes, flips, chiquita, etc). It may not be apparent, but if you look at really good servers and pushers, they also use body rotation, weight transfer, tensed core, chest/back usage and all that good stuff. I've incorporated a lot of these stuff to my game to the point where if I see someone who doesn't use the body properly in the loop, I'm confident that they won't be able to loop my sideunderspin serves at all. Because I've thrown my entire body weight into spinning the ball, if they don't also use their body to fight back, they have no chance of counteracting my spin. 

I would challenge the last statement - body usage is incredibly important in the BH too. Have you ever wondered how Mima Ito produces this incredible power in her BH punch from seemingly a 0 backswing stroke and from someone her size? It's all coming from the body. In fact with the BH it's even more important to use the body almost solely for the movement (both the swing and the backswing) and power generation otherwise you end up with pretty slow balls, and your arm is tense and you can't easily change things up. 

The fingers/arm is perfect for creating variation and adjusting to different balls, but it pales in comparison to the body in terms of power generation. 
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/26/2023 at 3:54am
You might be right, I just started doing BH weight training, so I'll see how that works for my BH stroke.

You do need a bit of adjustment period to fully utilize the training results, as obviously your racket would be at a different place than you're used to during the swing. This is probably a bit more pronounced with services as like you, I'm also trying to put my body into it a bit more, and it's a much more fine brushing stroke than a loop.

I was very puzzled why my BH service was so much spinnier than my pendulum serve, until i realized that I naturally put my whole body rotation into my BH serve. I'm gonna start doing that with the pendulum serve now too, like how Ma Long does it. 
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
FH: D09C max
BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/26/2023 at 4:28am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

You might be right, I just started doing BH weight training, so I'll see how that works for my BH stroke.

You do need a bit of adjustment period to fully utilize the training results, as obviously your racket would be at a different place than you're used to during the swing. This is probably a bit more pronounced with services as like you, I'm also trying to put my body into it a bit more, and it's a much more fine brushing stroke than a loop.

I was very puzzled why my BH service was so much spinnier than my pendulum serve, until i realized that I naturally put my whole body rotation into my BH serve. I'm gonna start doing that with the pendulum serve now too, like how Ma Long does it. 

I'm curious how did you manage to do it with a barbell. Is it like one end is kinda resting on the floor and you're rotating the other end? 
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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